Let’s welcome Taylor Harrison to the lab! She earned her B.S. in Biology from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She’s joining the lab to earn a Master’s degree in biology from UNF. She will be studying some really cool genes that might provide some very important insight into how segmentation evolved.
The whole gang is here!! New members include Tatiana Baia, Kennedi Light, and REU student Logan Scott. We are all fully vaccinated, which opens up a lot of possibilities that would otherwise be difficult…..like this cool pic that we took outside of the Biology building!! From left to right: Nichole, …
Former lab member Chloe Ramnarine has started a new job as a Research Associate at Rocket Pharmaceuticals in New Jersey. Congrats, Chloe!!
Every year, a single graduating senior from the UNF Biology Department is awarded the Outstanding Research Award. This year, our very own Raul Chavarria won the award. Congrats Raul!!
Raul has earned his B.S. in Biology! Congrats, Raul! UNF hosted a very safe graduation ceremony this weekend, which I know Raul’s family appreciated very much. Way to go, Raul!
Mandy and Raul presented their research at UNF’s annual Showcase of Advancement in Research and Scholarship (SOARS). They were both awarded Honorable Mention for their poster presentations. Great job, team!
Frank was recognized as a principal investigator who obtained research funding of $250,000 or more during fiscal year 2019-2020 at the 2021 Scholars Transforming Academic Research Symposium (STARS). The recognition came with some very nice prizes — a fancy travel bag and a research stipend!
Raul won a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program award!! This award is highly competitive. It will fund him during his two years as a Master’s student in the Body Plan Lab, starting Fall 2021, and his first year in a Ph.D. program. Wow!! Congrats, Raul!!
Former REU student Paul Nolte accepted a lab tech position at the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We wish her the best of luck on this next step in her career.
Frank and his PhD advisor, Elizabeth Jockusch, co-authored a News and Views article for Nature Ecology and Evolution. They wrote about two important articles about the origin of insect wings that were published in the journal. Frank always has fun talking evo-devo with Elizabeth, especially when they get to talk …
The Tardigrade Lab would like to wish our very own Nichole Wyman a very happy Veterans Day!
Nichole has been unable to visit the lab since the University was shut down in the Spring. We are happy to report that she is now back to her research. This semester she will be studying a very weird and interesting gene called fushi tarazu. She is really hoping to figure out …
Mandy has been diligently studying leg patterning since she joined the Smith Lab. Her research has been very well received at several scientific conferences where she presented it. In fact, she won several presentation awards for her research. Now, we’re pleased to report that her research has been published. Pretty …
Mandy produced a very cool image of a tardigrade embryo on our confocal microscope, just using autofluorescence. This tiny embryo is only 50 microns in length. The head is at the top and it’s facing to the right. It’s curled up into a “C” shape. You can see the little …
The Smith Lab’s very first REU student, Paula Nolte, graduated from Hope college!! She plans to work in the field of Microbiology for a bit, before applying to graduate school to study Microbiology in more depth. Paula did an excellent job studying tardigrade embryos during her time in The Smith …
We are very grateful to Dr. John Kantner and his team for all of their hard work drafting UNF’s research, scholarly, and creative activities reopening plan. The plan requires a very detailed description of our research activities and how we will maintain important social distancing protocols and a clean lab …
UNF hosted the Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship conference remotely today. Great job to the faculty and staff that made this possible. Both Mandy and Raul presented their research remotely. Great job to both of them for their fine presentations. Mandy won a Staff Choice Award. She …
Like most research labs, the Smith lab is closed for the foreseeable future, due to the pandemic. However, that doesn’t mean that the research stops! We are very busy working on manuscripts and bioinformatics studies from our homes. Here is a cool pic of Mandy’s home lab bench. She is …
Ariana has been awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research with Faculty grant at UCONN. She will be working with Frank’s PhD advisor, Elizabeth Jockusch, which is super neat. Hopefully some research can still take place this summer, but either way, writing a funded grant proposal is an excellent award. Great job, …
Mandy was very excited to win a best poster award at the Southeast Regional SACNAS Meeting in Gainesville. Mandy has pretty much won the Quadruple Crown at this point, in terms of poster awards. But….she’s not done yet! SOARS 2020, here she comes!
They both did fantastic jobs presenting posters at the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) meeting in Gainesville. Mandy, Raul, and Frank had a great time talking to students and faculty from many institutions that were in attendance, and learned about some very exciting …
Mandy represented UNF at the Undergraduate Research Posters at the Capitol event in Tallahassee! We are very proud of her for being one of only four undergraduate researchers at UNF to be chosen to represent our University at the event. Great job!
This grant will fund Frank’s NSF proposal RUI: Investigating tardigrade development to unravel the evolution of animal body plans. It provides three years of funding. The funding will open up many research opportunities for undergraduate students at UNF, and undergrads that visit the Smith Lab over the summer through the REU …
Raul won the best student poster award in the Division of Evolutionary Developmental Biology at at this year’s SICB in Austin! Way to go, Raul!
Mandy presented a poster that builds of her recent discovery that tardigrade legs only exhibit distal identity relative to the legs of onychophorans and arthropods. Her recent work has focused on additional candidate leg patterning genes. Her results reinforce just how weird tardigrades are.
Raul presented results of his recent investigation into canonical Wnt signaling in tardigrades. Results of his study have important implications for the evolution of the tardigrade body plan. Raul has only been part of the Smith Lab for a year, and has collected embryonic expression data for nearly all of …
Ariana presented the results of her REU project from last summer at SICB. She made several important discoveries about gut patterning in tardigrades in just a short 10 week period. Mandy, Raul, and Frank were very happy to get to spend a few days with Ariana before she heads back …
We had a great time at SICB this year. Austin was a lot of fun. It was great catching up with the Evo-Devo community. We saw some very interesting and thought provoking talks and posters. Most importantly, Ariana, Mandy, and Raul all gave excellent poster presentations!
It is always with mixed emotions that we congratulate Smith Lab students on graduating. On one hand, we are so proud of them. On the other hand, we are losing valuable members of the lab team. But, mostly we are just very excited about the future accomplishments of our lab …
Mandy is only one of four undergraduate students that have been chosen to represent UNF at this year’s Undergraduate Research Posters at the Capitol event in Tallahassee. Each university in Florida’s state university system can only send a select few students to this event. So, this is quite an honor. …
Ariana won a Travel to Present research Award from the Office of Undergraduate Research at the University of Connecticut. This will help support her travel to the upcoming Society for Integrative Biology meeting in Austin, TX. She will be presenting research from her visit to the Smith Lab last summer. …
Frank gave a research talk at the Korea Polar Research Institute in Incheon, South Korea. He had an especially great time talking to Dr. Tae-Yoon S. Park and his students about panarthropod body plan evolution.
This is one of the last requirements Bri had to fulfill to graduate. Congrats Bri!!
This award will help fund her trip to the 2020 SICB meeting in Austin, TX. Congrats, Mandy!!
Zach gave an oral presentation of his research in the Smith Lab as part of his Senior Seminar requirement. He gave a great presentation and did a great job of answering questions. Congrats!!
Ariana and Raul won Charlotte Mangum Support Awards to help fund their trip to the 2020 SICB meeting in Austin. Excellent!!
Ariana presented her research at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research poster exhibition at the University of Connecticut. She performed this research last summer in the Smith lab. Great job!
Mandy and Raul took some tardigrades and some microscopes to the Museum of Science and History in Jacksonville for World Animal Day. The visitors were amazed by our little water bears!
Mandy and Raul were awarded Conference Grants from the Office of Undergraduate Research at UNF. This will help fund their trip to the 2020 SICB meeting in Austin. Great job!!
Mandy presented her research at the 2019 Pan-Am Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology in Miami. She won 2nd place for Best Undergraduate Poster! Great job!!
Mandy and Zach presented their research at the Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship. Mandy won an Award of Excellence for Outstanding Poster Presentation!!
The Florida Undergraduate Research Conference took place at UNF this year. Mandy and Zach both presented their research.
Mandy won a Best Poster Award in the Division of Evolutionary Developmental Biology at the 2019 SICB meeting!!
Mandy and Paula presented their posters at SICB in Tampa!! Great job!!
Frank published two protocols for studying gene expression patterns in tardigrade embryos in Cold Spring Harbor Protocols—and in situ hybridization protocol and a immunohistochemistry protocol. The entire issue of this journal is dedicated to tardigrade protocols!
REU student Paula Nolte presented her research at at the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates Symposium!!
Frank gave a talk at the 14th International Symposium on Tardigrada, in Copenhagen. It was great to catch up with the world’s tardigradologists.
Mandy and Frank co-authored a paper that was accepted for publication in EvoDevo. https://evodevojournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13227-018-0106-1
